Night
by nimacu
Summary: A NarutoxKurenai oneshot, about when you have little left you have to cling to something.


Title: Night

Author: Nimacu

Summery: A Naruto/Kurenai pairing one shot.

A/N The beginning of this got stuck in my head, so I decided to make a nice little one-shot out of it, it's a little angstyier than what I'm used to but hey, I've had a rough week! The only way I can feasibly see these two getting together. But we'll just say desperate times call for desperate measures. I wanted something different, so I just wrote it! Give it a shot!

Disclaimer: Not mine!

_He was old before his time, twenty years of life and he'd already laid more of his precious comrades in the ground than were now left above it._

_She was old before he was even born, fifteen years old to be precise. In fact in glaring clarity she remembers the night he was born, at the time she'd been training to be a medic nin, a goal long lost in time, there'd been so many needs for active chunnin and jounin warriors after the war and the kyuubi that she'd pushed the medic training to the side until she only remembered her childhood dreams in her weakest moments._

_She knew that people talked, she knew that they called her names. Saying she was taking advantage of the young Hokage who had no one close to him left to love . The villagers had forgotten that they were in part the reason why the Hokage was so tentative about drawing new people into his confidence, that even as his comrades past on he didn't replace their void in his life. And she could admit to herself that some part of her knew that in some way the villagers were right, she was using him._

_She was tired…The night they'd begun their relationship was the worst night of her life, she'd had to come back to Kohanu broken and beaten, barely clinging onto her own life and forced to tell him that she'd lost her entire unit. Two of the Hokage's closest friends, and the one great love of his life. He'd been so broken, more broken than she'd seen a man in a very long time._

_That night she'd lost her students, her children, the one shining things she had left in a life filled with more strife than happiness, she'd clung to them in the past years as her own life fell apart, seeing the death of the one man who'd ever held her heart, she embraced their joys as her joys and their failures as her failures. She'd remembered the joy she'd felt as Hinata had rushed to her home so that she'd be the first know that she'd finally told him…and he'd felt the same way. She'd watch Shino become the head of his clan…and she'd seen Kiba finally learn what it really takes to become a man._

_But on that night it was over, and as her heart was breaking with his they'd comforted each other in a way that was truly older than time. They could have gone on from there and led their separate lives, but something changed that night. They'd found a peace wallowing in their miseries with each other._

_They had to go on with the rest of their lives. The village still had to be led and their were still missions to be carried out, but they found that when they were together it was ok if they weren't happy and that in fact they were close to being as miserable as one could be and still function._

_It wasn't her fault and she tried to fight off of the guilt because they hadn't always stayed completely miserable and eventually some of what they'd kept completely private had slowly leaked to the village. It was then that for the first time she'd realized that not everyone would approve of a middle age Jounin and the young Hokage together, Hatake had approached her, warned her about using Naruto, warned her that'd if she hurt him she'd pay with her life. She hadn't realized that Hatake Kakashi's loyalty had run that deep when it came to the Hokage, but he inspired that kind of loyalty in everyone who met him, and so that night she'd offered to leave him. A no strings attached removal from his life. The look in his eyes as she offered broke her heart into a thousand guilty little pieces as she realized she couldn't do it, and so because they couldn't live without the other in their lives, or at least what the other represented they forged on together._

_She wasn't sure if it was love, there was a good chance that it was more the sort of sticky emotion that glues desperate people together. But sometimes, late at night when she could feel his heart beating underneath her ear and hear the deep breaths he took as he slept she was positive it was love, and that in spite of everything she'd been through and survived, if he was somehow removed from her life it'd be the end. It was as though she'd been given so many chances to do things right, and here with this man was her very last chance. But that was only in the very darkest part of the night…_


End file.
